Mildred's Good Night
by liahansen47
Summary: A story I wrote last year as an English project. Think it's pretty good so I thought I'd upload it here. The project was to write a scene that could realistically be injected into Fahrenheit 451. I chose to write about the events of the night leading up to Mildred's overdose on sleeping pills. Enjoy. :)


"You said _what?"_

"It wasn't my fault!"

"Like heck it wasn't!"

"What do you want me to do?"

Mildred smiled. This was one of her favorites. Which it was, she couldn't quite say, but she was sure it was one of the best, as was the one that had been on before that, and the one before that. Come to think of it, Mildred couldn't think of a single episode that she _hadn't_ thought was one of her favorites. That was odd.

Oh well, just a reflection of the quality of modern programming, she supposed. Now if only she were allowed to view it in its entirety. After all, without that fourth wall, how could she expect to fully enjoy her Family with only a measly _three_ screens? Without that one wall, this was just another part her boring old house. With the wall, her humdrum little home would become the permanent residence of glamorous and alluring strangers, playing out their little dramas and living their lives with her at their side. She knew, she just _knew_ that this wall was the only thing rid her of all the weird feelings she'd been having lately.

She sighed. Guy always said they just couldn't afford it, but she suspected that that might not be the case. She knew Guy had never liked the Family. He didn't understand them. He didn't understand _her._ He thought other things like air-conditioning and heating were more important than her Family. It didn't matter to him what she wanted, he would spend that money the way he saw fit.

She shook herself. Why was she thinking about all this? She was missing the story!

"Well, I didn't do anything wrong!"

"Well neither did I!"

"Well neither did I!"

"Well neither did-" Mildred wondered what it must have been like to be Guy. Always off in the city, rushing around, doing… what was it he did again? Oh yes, book burning. An important job. She wasn't exactly sure why it was important, but that didn't really matter. What was important was that it was important. Important. Important important important. Now, what did that mean? Was it even a word? Was Mildred important? Were the Family important? Was anything?

Suddenly, Mildred's head was spinning. She leant over in her chair, resting her head in her hands and her hands on her elbows and her elbows on her knees. What were these feelings? Why did they always happen when she let her mind wander? Why did no one talk about these things? There were so many things people didn't talk about. Little things, the kind of things that don't occur to you to talk about, things that only crop up when you're alone, or lying in bed in the dead of night. Things that she could only stop with noise, endless noise, like what she played at night to get to sleep, or…

Or the Family.

Was that all they were to her? Noise to block out the thoughts while she waited for Guy to come home? Was this all her life was? Had it ever been anything else?

"Stop it!" She screamed to the empty house, covering her ears and scrunching her eyes shut, tears streaming down her face. The house made no response, except to pause the program she had been watching. She sat there, head in hands for what may have been a moment, may have been an hour, may have been the rest of her life, not daring to think another thought.

Finally, she took her hands away from her face and looked around the room, wearily. It was almost nine. Guy still wasn't home. She sniffled. Her face was almost dry, but her eyes were still red and puffy. Slowly, she got to her feet and left the room.

In the bedroom, without changing, she flopped down on the bed, not even bothering to cover herself with the blankets. What did it matter, anyway? She'd just have to take them off again in the morning. She let her hand fall off the bed and grope around the floor. After a second, it touched something cold and cylindrical. Robotically, she unscrewed the top of the pill bottle, dumped a couple tablets into her hand and swallowed them greedily. She needed to fall asleep immediately.

But it wasn't enough. She got two more and dropped them in her mouth. And two more after that. And two more after that. And two more after that. Soon, when she reached for the bottle again, she found it completely empty.

She shrugged and pulled the covers up over her. Already, she could feel her thoughts fading. She wondered what would happen to the Family tomorrow. Apparently, they were going to introduce a new way of doing things soon that would make the televiser even more fun. Yes, tomorrow would be an even better day than today.

But in the back of her mind, in the part that even pills and white noise couldn't penetrate, something occurred to Mildred; maybe the reason she couldn't think of an episode she liked better than the others wasn't because they were all equally good. Maybe… it was because…

She never finished the thought. Mildred had finally fallen asleep. A deep, dreamless sleep, a wide smile plastered on her face.


End file.
